Sunday, October 29, 2006

It Was My Understanding That There Would Be No Math

Ten games into the Caps' season seems like a good point at which to do some evaluatin', or at least some lookin' at numbers. This is a broad look at team stats taken from a small sample, and it's worth noting that much of the below is a comparison of this year's team so far to last year's squad rather than a comparison of this year's team to the rest of the NHL, so take it all with a shaker of salt.

The numbers, then, after ten games:

The Record: 3-3-4 overall, 2-1-2 within the Division... The 10 points are only good enough for 13th in the Conference right now, but the team is tied for seventh in standings-points-per-game-played, so don't kiss your playoff hopes goodbye quite yet (though 82 points at season's end will almost assuredly not be enough to make the postseason)... Six of the ten games played have been on the road and five of the ten have been against 2005-06 playoff teams (seven of the ten have been against teams that are currently in the top eight in their respective Conferences)... The Caps have gotten at least one point in the standings in seven of the ten games, and as long as the NHL wants to keep handing out loser points, we'll take 'em.

So what's the bottom line? Well, the Caps are scoring more, allowing fewer goals against, scoring more regularly on the power play and killing off penalties at a greater rate than last year. To me, those are all positive indicators and if the team can cut down on the penalties and shots on goal against, progress should continue.